Markdown Anchor Link With Same Name But Different Sections

There is no markdown specification that I know of that supports specifying a section-subsection-... format. As I understand it, they're converted to something like <a name=header>header</a> links, and there's no info on what the parent header is.

A workaround that I use is that when a header name is repeated, it gets a -1 appended to it so you can access with #header-1. The same pattern is applied for the next copy (#header-2), and the next (#header-3) and so forth.

Here is a sample markdown (working on VS Code 1.38.1):

# App

[module 1 background](#background)

[module 2 background](#background-1)

[module 3 background](#background-2)

## Module 1

### background

## Module 2

### SubModule 2-1

#### SubSubModule 2-1-1

##### background

## Module 3

### background

The problem with this workaround is that you'll have to keep track of the order of the duplicate names, which gets quite tedious if you have a lot. The good thing is it's easier to create a link to a duplicate name embedded in a series of headers (#background-1 is easier than ##module2###submodule-2-1####subsubmodule-2-1-1#####background).

I don't know exactly how or why this is, but VS Code is using the CommonMark specification and the markdown-it library to parse it, as mentioned in Markdown editing doc.

As stated in the Markdown Guide, some applications allow you to use HTML tags in Markdown-formatted text (e.g. GitHub). Check your Markdown application's documentation to be sure.

If HTML is allowed, you can use the following:

# Front end

- [Background](#front-end-background)

<h2 id="front-end-background">Background</h2>

# Database

- [Background](#database-background)

<h2 id="database-background">Background</h2>

In the example above, <h2> is the same as ##. It also works with other headings.